Wednesday, December 8, 2010

All you can do is hope that lists help when you're busy and broke.

Ok this is random but I gotta say Aldi's organic product range is pretty yummy. Polly and I are so in love with their toasted muesli clusters, and have always been eating their yoghurt with that lovely layer of wildberry jam. And I made peanut butter chocolate chip cookies the other day (again from Curtis Stone's cookbook. But not only because he's hot.); they're super moist and chewy and taste adorable. They lack the cookie crunch, but as long as they taste good... don't you think something different is always nice? :)

I put together my Christmas wishlist - it's probably more of a long-term wish list though (and who knows how long "long" will be). What I might get for myself this Christmas is probably the passport cover haha! And maaaybe a key loop if a nice one comes across - the search for the Marc Jacobs one is a bit of a pain here in Australia. And why the sunnies you ask? Because I'm an idiot and I lost them. I'm too embarrassed to tell you how.

3. Browse for some baking and cooking ideas for this Christmas season. Thinking about giving the macaron challenge a try - I can see myself sweating and suffering from nerve breakdowns in our kitchen already, but they'd make such lovely gifts.

4. Plan the second city day trip for this Saturday. It's my turn this time, and Laurent and I are both poor as ass at the moment, so it has to be a tight budget plan.

5. Cook dinner. I feel like chicken drumsticks and peas haha. Actually we have to wash up first.

To-do's soonish:

1. Browse around Paddington Markets and EQ Village Sunday Market for gifts

2. Silly Season Sale this weekend in Darlinghurst for... more gifts? Oh please don't look at me like that, I've missed out on so many sales already.

3. Try to figure out when Polly and I would have time to pre-celebrate Christmas, since both of us will be working over the holidays. And deciding where to go - current picks are The Tea Room at QVB for high tea, or Friday lunch at Bistrode CBD. We'll be evaluating our choices; hope we'll make it to our date too.

4. Finish up Christmas shopping and get all the presents organised and wrapped. Am working all mornings for the rest of this week so I'll have plenty of time to stroll around the city.

5. Plan for Christmas and New Year's. My roster is quite good for the Christmas holidays but on New Year's Day I have to start work at 6am. At least I wanna see the fireworks (my plan was actually to party properly), but then I'll most likely fall asleep at work. As if anyone's gonna be up before lunch anyway! Grr.

7. Update my restaurant check list. There are zillions of restaurants and cafes here in Sydney that I wanna try out - rich times are so not in sight.

8. Start arranging my scrap book. I've been collecting articles on places to go, F&B, interior ideas etc over the years, and have so many websites bookmarked on my browser; I really need to start getting everything together because I'm rather a visual person - it's easier for me to think and plan when everything's in front of me. Clicking through millions of websites at once drives me nuts.

9. Get Polly and the boys together for hot pot before everyone jets off to holidays. We love it when it's hot and steamy. Even in summer. ;)

10. Speaking of jetting off - I booked my flight ticket to Ho Chi Minh as well. Will also be stopping in Singapore to hang with Benny and enjoy this wonderful country one more time, therefore have to plan what I wanna see/where I wanna go/what I wanna shop for. But of course I'm super thrilled to see my family (especially my sister!) and my friends back home as well - expecting to meet some of my dearest homies. That's why all the shopping!

So. Before I get depressed (because the weather forecast has been "cloudy & isolated showers" all week, and it never rained a drop when I was at work; today I got my day off and it's cloudy and windy.), I'll be on my way to the beach and do all my "jobs" for today down there (except for the cooking and washing up of course) - I haven't been there for a thousand days. Hopefully my Christmas cards won't fly into the ocean.

Oh yeah that's her.

Nicole Ngo

Manly, Sydney, NSW Australia

Originally from, well, anywhere.

hungry for love. thirsty for life.

[sunshine song - jason mraz]

loves good food and drinks, having fun times with family and friends, the beach, weird, funky, cute, extraordinary and exotic destinations (could be anything from a café to a new country!), walking barefoot, fashion, good reads, doing nothing, messy hair, being around lovely people, and capturing all these with any camera that's handy. i am trapped somewhere between business and art - i am success driven and (fairly) organised but hate numbers; i fail (not too badly but still) at drawing, painting, playing music and singing, but i do have an eye for beauty and at least can work cameras. which means i could either be pretty useful or pretty useless when i'm lost.

this blog keeps me going and holds all great memories that aren't to be forgotten. welcome to the brighter days of my journey.